US LevFin Wrap — Whatabrands, Citrix and Qlik jump on hot primary market

Emily Fasold
+William Hoffman

10 May 2024•9 min read

If you were out catching the keynotes from David Beckham and Elon Musk at the Milken Conference in Beverly Hills, or the LSTA’s Deal Catalyst event in Fort Lauderdale this week, here’s what you might have missed in the US LevFin primary: another fresh wave of multi-billion-dollar loan repricings, and the busiest week in the high yield new issue market for over two years.

Notable bond offerings included tap-to-pay technology provider Block (formerly known as Square), which priced $2bn in 6.5% senior notes at par yesterday. The company, which recently reported strong EBITDA growth in its Q1 earnings, was able to upsize the deal from $1.5bn.

While the funds are officially being raised for general corporate purposes, some sources we spoke to this week speculated that the pre-funding could be funneled towards repaying its looming $1bn in convertible bonds due 2026.

Similarly, Apollo-backed hospital operator LifePoint Health also reported strong Q1 earnings recently, which helped the investment case for lenders as it raised $1.3bn in the bond and loan markets to tackle a 2026 bond maturity this week.

Overall, it made for the busiest week in the HY primary market since November 2021, according to JP Morgan. New debt sales picked up amid a strong set of Q1 earnings reports (see links to our reports below) and the largest retail fund inflows into the asset class in six months, JPM analysts said Friday.

“What we saw with LifePoint is more reflective of the border market and capital availability than LifePoint itself,” one buyside source said. “Any credit that is starting to see some growth and improved performance should be tapping the market today to either bolster liquidity or address near-term maturities,” the source said.

For those stuck on their desks this week, here’s our round-up of the Milken conference, where creditor-on-creditor violence and private credit were hot topics.

Via 9fin data

The re-price is right

Loan investors may have been feeling a little burnt out on debt repricings earlier this year after digesting a (seemingly endless) wave of them in Q4 and Q1, but the accelerated deadlines, tightened pricing and upsizing seen in this week’s batch shows how investors have little choice but to hold onto repriced paper in a rallying market with scant new supply.

The LBO financing for CD&R’s buyout of IT service company Presidio was a rare exception this week, with bankers pricing a $1.853bn TLB due 2031 at SOFR+375bps and a 99.5 OID, alongside a $750m SSN due 2031 that was priced at par to yield 7.5%.

Deutsche Bank meanwhile is leading a $1.8bn term loan to fund New Mountain Capital’s investment in Grant Thornton, which we broke down in more detail this week. As private equity firms take a bigger footprint in accounting and professional services, investors are having to get to grips with new ownership and compensation structures.

Overall however new money deals are still relatively scarce, as we outlined in our latest LevFin Primary Review. This is helping to drum up renewed appetite for repricing and refinancings.

“There’s a supply-demand imbalance, so it’s a great market for companies that need to address near-term maturities,” said one portfolio manager. “The capital markets today are very accommodating.”

Order up

Case in point: Whatabrands. The quickly expanding burger chain has seen strong earnings growth in recent quarters, which gave it extra ammo to get favorable terms for the $2.73bn dual-tranche term loan repricing and add-on deal that it launched earlier this week.

The company’s attempt to raise an add-on term loan at the same time as the debt repricing raised eyebrows for some sources we spoke to, but it still managed to accelerate the commitment deadline and tighten pricing on both tranches, which priced earlier today at SOFR+275bps with a 50bps floor at par.

Business analytics provider Qlik Technologies was another repricing success story from this week. The borrower, which is rated B2/B/B+ at the corporate level, shaved 100bps off its existing term loan spread yesterday after pricing its $2.4bn term loan at SOFR+375bps at par, tight to revised talk.

Enterprise software provider Open Text Corp (rated Ba2/BB+/BB+) also hopped on the repricing wave this week with a $2.23bn term loan, which would bring the spread on its existing debt even lower, to SOFR+225bps with a 0bps floor at par. Commitments on the deal were due yesterday. The borrower announced earlier today that it had completed a $2bn debt reduction with proceeds from the sale of AMC.

A familiar name returns

Cloud Software Group made another splash in the primary market this week on the back of its strong performance since Citrix was merged with TIBCO by PE sponsors Vista Equity Partners and Elliott Investment Management in 2022.

On Wednesday, the company printed a $1.8bn SSN due 2032 to take out preferred equity: the notes were upsized twice from an initial $1bn, before being priced at par to yield 8.25%. The company followed that up with a $4.089bn loan repricing that launched yesterday and is being offered at SOFR+400bps with a par OID.

The software company’s backstory as a hung LBO weighed on the credit initially, with Goldman Sachs offloading its $3.8bn of bond debt at a painful 79 OID just last year. But a source we spoke to said the company has made a lot of operational and cash flow improvements since then, which may encourage lenders.

“I think there was obviously a ton of skepticism with this name in the past, but their results have been impressive and they’re operating flawlessly on the merger,” the PM said. “They’re being rewarded for that by being able to raise more capital and address their debt.”

While we’re on the subject of borrowers re-testing their luck in the primary, aircraft services provider Avia Solutionspriced its $300m in 9.75% SUNs at par this week, less than one week after pulling the deal. The bonds priced wider than last week’s initial talk of 9%, but the fact that it returned to the market so soon could speak to improving market sentiment.

Earnings surge

Our coverage of Q1 earnings season this week showed improvements for many borrowers, including privately held medical supply company Medline, which boosted its guidance for the year earlier this week as it continues to increase sales with existing customers.

To check out our recent earnings coverage on publicly traded high-yield borrowers, follow the links below: